We packed the Motor Home with food and goodies for the trip, filled the race jugs with pricey racing fuel, threw in some toys and food for Turbo and hit the road around 1:30 pm. Our first stop was the groomers a few blocks from the house where we picked up a freshly groomed Turbo who was feeling frisky and excited with his new haircut and the fact that he was going bye-bye in the rolling house.
After driving through some desolute looking "Congress created Dust Bowl" areas that used to be beautiful farm land in the Northern Part of California we disscussed how sad it was that so many farmers and farm workers were being put out of work because of some stupid fish. Here's a little link where you can see the full story.
Around 9PM we decided we should sleep so we settled in for the night at a little RV park in Willows that could handle 70 feet of rig. At 9:30 we were munching on on a couple of TV Dinners and then crawled into bed for some exciting Tuesday night Television. Keep in mind that since we would not have plug in power (Hookups)for the balance of our vacation, falling asleep with the TV set to snooze was kind of exciting as it wouldn't happen again for awhile. The same hold true for the extended "Non Sailor Shower" the following morning.
Around 8AM we woke up and showered. After buckling everything down from out night in the park we hit the road again eating breakfast as we cruised the I-5 at a little over 60 MPH. Yes we were breaking the law, but not by much. As we climbed in altitude and got closer to Oregon we passed some beautiful landscape. Of course I didn't pull the camera out as there was nowhere to stop and I hate through the window screen shots.
When we were just outside of Oregon Honey decided we should rent a car so we could tool around a bit. I made a few calls and found that we were out of luck due to lack of planning. Oh well, the cars were overpriced anyway. We would just plow down the road in our 70 feet of glory!
Our first Oregon stop was Hell Gate Jet Boat Excursion. We pulled through their crowded parking lot onto the quiet residential street behind them. The generator and big air conditioner were started and we enjoyed sandwiches before taking a brief nap. Our reservation was for 4:15 and would be a 4 hour drip down and back up the Rogue River.
What a blast!!!! Our tour guide Craig took us down the river doing several 360 degree turns as well as some random body soaking stops just for fun. We saw beautiful Bald Eagles, Starlings and lots of beautiful homes and nature. We were then treated to a yummy meal at their resturant, The OK Corral, before heading back up the river for even more wet fun. Because of the wetness of the ride, we were warned not to bring our good camera. We regretted having to leave it behind as our seats weren't as wet as others, but we had no idea of where we would sit.
We finished around 8:45 and loaded back into the RV for our short 40 mintue trip to the race track. Of course by the time we got in the area it was after 9 PM and quite dark. Race tracks are generally in obscure out of the way places, so to say there was no lighting in the area would be an understatement. It was incredibly dark. We followed the directions and saw no sign of the track. We called our friends who informed us that they had passed it in the middle of the day and that we needed to turn around. Have you EVER tried to turn around a Motor Home pulling a car trailer on a lane and a half of country road with water gulleys on either side? It's not a smart thing to do so we just followed the road until we saw a church with a decent sized parking lot.
The church parking lot was a nice size but the drive way wasn't and there was not room to "Go wide" as you would normally do turning into a parking lot. Yeah, it wasn't pretty. Front half of the rig half on the lawn of the church, half on the driveway. Back half of the rig teatering on the edge of previously mentioned water gulley. Moving forward was not an option. Moving backwards wasn't working so well either. Traffic of course appeared out of nowhere and began stacking up behind the trailer.
After walking around the trailer a few times we decided to just back all the way up until the back tires were nearly in the gulley on the other side of the street and then turn so that the Motor Home was out of the Parking Lot and back on the road. I stood out in the middle of the road hoping the car headed in my direction would see me and not squish me into the side of the trailer and directed Honey as to when to stop.
We got the rig back on the road and I ran to jump into my seat. We continued down the road until we hit the highway. We had made a complete square. We started again, and this time when we turned off the highway and onto the racetrack road we ignored our GPS and went off the advice of others and found the unlit driveway of our destination.
9:30 pm found us setting up camp, nibbling on some leftovers and crawling in to bed after a long morning driving and a long evening in the sun.
